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My name is Steven Foster, a Microsoft CRM MVP, working at Intergen as the CRM Product and Marketing Manager. I have over 17 years of CRM experience delivering a multitude of CRM solutions across a number of countries. I hope you find my blog interesting!
I am also an entrepreneur reselling the HappyOrNot customer satisfaction service.

So Polaris is live, and the new process forms now known technically as the updated forms look good, but what are the limitations of their use, what does this mean for my CRM instance? I have listed below some of the limitations of these forms so that you are all aware on when to use and when not to use!

Only one Updated form can exist for any of the COLAC entities (Contact, Opportunity, Lead, Account and Case entities), multiple forms still exist for the Classic forms [Steven Foster Update] You can create multiple forms in the new mode, and visibility of these can be controlled by security roles, but only one form can be the default and there is no easy way to switch between the different updated form types other than switching to classic, changing to the different form and then closing the record and re-opening the record.

No Javascript event handlers on On load, On change or On save, if included the form will return to Classic

Only Web Resources can be added to the forms, which can interact with the fields on the form but they load asynchronously which means there will be a delay

Left hand navigation – you can view related records but cannot add new ones, so if you want to create an opportunity against an account then you will need to either add the opportunity as a sub grid or switch to classic forms

You can only add Phone calls and tasks to the record, so as above if you want to create an appointment then you will need to add a subgrid or switch to classic

The command bar cannot be changed in anyway, unlike the ribbon

If you switch to Classic forms then these will become the default, and to enable the Updated form you will first need to open the record again and switch the form to the updated form, close and then reopen

Cannot change the bing maps integration if you wanted to show a different address or different address fields

Only one process form can exist for Opportunity, Case and Lead, so if you have different sales processes then you will either need to simplify to one or switch to classic

You cannot change any of the locked components, which is a shame as the Case presents some core fields from the Account or Contact associated to the Case, but you can not change this if for example you wanted to add the Customer Pin to the form for validation purposes

6 Responses

Regarding limitation nr. 1, I haven’t actually run into this one myself. When you create a new form after Polaris, it will by default be of the “flow” type, including the new components. While you don’t have access to the form selector unless you navigate to the Classic mode first, multiple “flow” forms can still exist and be targeted to users based on security roles.

Apart from that, all the limitations you listed are indeed something that any system customizer should be aware of before considering migrating to the new Polaris experience. There’s a lot to be loved about the refreshed UI, but until Orion arrives we’ll be quite limited with the actual customer use cases that fit this new UI unfortunately.

Hi. Regarding Limitation 7:
We are using CRM Online. One of our team members swiched the form to classic mode. We cannot find an option on form through which it can be swiched back to new form. Could you please help?
Thanks in advance.

You have to switch the form selection back to the “Account” or “Contact” or “Opportunity” or “Lead” or “Case” form and then save and close the record and then re-open. You should now see the new polaris forms opening again. There is no button to switch back to the updated forms once you have opened the classic forms.

Possibly the most annoying thing about this is that Microsoft think that switching to ‘classic view’ is a suitable response to anyone that wants to use basic features such as Dialogs, Workflows or adding a new related record. Seems like Windows 8 all over again. I’d very interested to know if these features could be added back into the new forms using the ‘Insert Navigation Link’ feature?